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Five Ounces of Pain

MMA on Tap

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Here is a post from the Underground Forum that caught my attention. The thread starter opened the thread with the title, "Dont' worry, Matt Hamill is done". Apparently, Matt Hamill is an opportunist and a shady business partner... see for yourself:

I just want to let everyone know on the UnderGround, especially possible sponsors, that Matt Hamill is probably the most dishonest, greedy, self-absorbed loser in the sport. Dealing with him first hand, I've realized that he has lied to sponsors, friends, and coaches to further his wallet size. Don't get me wrong, go where the cash is, but don't make a deal and then not honor it. I have been involved in the sport for the last 5 years and have made many friends and established good relationships with the MMA community.

That being said, Matt is probably the only one that has lied repeatedly to our business and those that were close to us. He is also not man enough to reply to anyone that he's screwed in the process. I want to add that our close team sponsor Streetwise Fightwear has also dealt with Matt. He has repeatedly try to screw his first real sponsor by making a deal with Ray Newkirk (President of Streetwise) and then turning around and not living up to the deal he made with his close friend and sponsor. The reason I'm posting is not because he was dishonest to us, but that he has shit on some close friends of mine. I want to end this message with the hope that Bisbing will KO him and end his career, so he cannot cheat anymore of the MMA community.

Ryan Ciotoli CNY MMA Team Bombsquad

I will give you some details, just so you don't think I am full of shit. When we (Bombsquad) started out we wanted to help Matt achieve his goal of making it to the UFC. They told him that he needed a couple of fights to get on the Ultimate Fighter. Knowing Matt from wrestling I wanted to help him out. I scheduled fights for him and he wanted me to manage his career for the time being. I agreed to help him out knowing full well that he might end up leaving and joining another team, which was fine because we weren't established at the time. He lived with me for about a month and trained with some of our fighters.

I took him to his first 2 fights which was about a 12hour drive each time. I also lent him some money and paid for a lot of his expenses, which he never gave back. I thought at the time we were friends, since we spent a lot of time together. I told him that he may get a lot of offers thrown his way, especially with the number of people that knew him from the Ultimate Fighter. I told him that I would let him know what the offers were and we would decide what the best situation was for him. He decided to speak with sponsors without my knowledge and then lie about not making deals with them. One such sponsor was Streetwise. He told me that he wasn't dealing with them and said they were bothering him.

Streetwise said they were sponsoring him and I thought they were taking advantage of him since they didn't go through us. Basically, what Matt was doing was playing both sides. I finally contacted Streetwise and we got our stories together and it made sense. When I confronted him, he played dumb and blaimed it on his disability like he did on the ultimate fighter. After that I was sick of the dishonesty and the hard work I was putting into him, and he never tried contacting me after that. All he had to do was let me know what was up and what he wanted to do. As a friend I would have supported whatever he decided. The one good thing that came out of this was that we developed a relationship with Streetwise and now are fortunate enough to deal with Ray Newkirk and his company.

I am not going to lie, it would have been nice to add someone like Matt Hamill to our team before I knew him. That being said, we are doing great without him. Having someone like him would be a headache and a cancer to anybodys team. I started the thread because of his interactions with certian sponsors that he has screwed.

I totally understand that point. He could of let me know, but again he was too much of a coward to let me know what his deal was. I really don't care anymore what Matt does, but I just heard the other day of how he tried fucking Streetwise. Streetwise is our team sponsor and it pissed me off. I just wanted to let the public know how dishonest and cowardly Matt was. You can take what you want from it.

It was a weird situation. At the time I ran a school sponsored club at Ithaca College that I did for free. I trained fighters for fun, and coached wrestling at Ithaca College. I enjoyed MMA and donated my time training, cornering, and driving athletes to shows. I heard Matt Hamill was interested in getting into MMA and I was willing to help him. His college coach was friends with me and he thought Matt would be good at this sport. As a fellow wrestler I wanted to help him out. I contacted him and he was interested in training with us. He stayed with me for about a month and I loaned him money to help him train. We became friends at that time and I really wasn't looking to gain anything from it.

I took him to his fights and he got on the ultimate fighter. In the meantime I met a striking coach and he wanted to get a school together, especially with the popularity of MMA on the rise. While Matt was on the show, we got a school up and running and thought having Matt as a teammate would be great for business. When are relationship started it was more friendship than a business opportunity. This is when we tried to sign him to a contract and manage his career. He agreed that we would manage him and start the process of getting him sponsors. Like I said, it was a weird situation. We asked him if he wanted to join someone else or stay with us. He wanted our help and we scheduled an appointment to sign a contract. In the meantime he started making deals without our knowledge.

We just wanted him to let us know what deals he made, so things didn't get screwed up on his end. That's when he made a deal with Streetwise and didn't let us know. Streetwise was advertising that Matt was sponsored by them and we asked Matt and he said no. I could care less who sponsored Matt. What he was doing was saying that he didn't have any sponsors so everyone (sponsors and friends) would pay him. He was playing both sides. I never said that this wasn't a good opportunity for us, but as his friend I was mad that he would do that. When I asked him about it he played dumb and didn't know how to answer any of our questions. He never contacted me after that and I never contacted him after our last exchange. Last week I heard that he pulled some shit with Streetwise and it angered me that he was doing the same bullshit. That's why I started the thread.

3 comments:

WRONG. Why spread lies and deceitfulness when you are simply upset about being left out. It's understandable to attack someone you know is too good to deal with petty slander. Matt is a damn good guy who you know would never cheat anyone (period).